Ganieva is your window into a new world, a fascinating glimpse of what daily life is like in Dagestan today, with its people trying to live and love as authoritarian politics from Moscow collide with fundamentalist Islamic separatist movements, as her literary Russian narrative voice is interspersed with conversations in Avar and other Turkic languages of Dagestan.

First off – Avar is not a Turkic language. It is Northeast Caucasian, as are the majority of Dagestan’s indigenous languages.

Meanwhile I began reading the story “Шайтаны” along with the English translation, simply to avoid scrolling back and forth in the Russian text, where the footnotes explaining the Avar words are all given at the very end (in the English they are at the bottom of each page), and also as an exercise to test my own comprehension of the Russian text and check my own hypothetical translations against the official one.

And, as often happens, I inadvertently stumbled onto some curious things.

The Avar words are rendered in an academic-style transliteration as if they were Russian. For example – the letter гь is given as g’ – as if it were a palatalized Russian g, when in fact this letter is pronounced as English h; й is given as i or ĭ when y would have done just as well and been less confusing.

Thus,

Вай, диляй, гьание ячIе, эбелъул

Vaĭ, diliaĭ, g’anie iache, ėbel’ul (p 361)

could be rendered

Way, dilay, haniye yach’e, ebehlul

which, apart from more closely reflecting the actual Avar pronunciation, would be more intelligible to the average English-speaking reader who is not a linguist or Slavist.

The other thing was the mistranslations from the Russian, which, though minor, were enough to be distracting:

чIанда, which the Russian footnotes give as чушь (and in English as “garbage”), means nonsense, and the expression “нести чушь”, means to “talk nonsense”, not “bring garbage”.
Furthermore, in the English the word is given as “chhandu” – which is the Avar word “ch’anda” put through the meat-grinder of Russian grammar (the -u is the Russian accusative ending).

To conclude – perhaps it’s too much to expect publishers to care enough about such a little-known language to make sure that it is transcribed properly, but they should have at least done a little research before lumping the Avars in with the Turks, and taken more care with the translation.

Nitpicking aside, Alisa Ganieva’s stories about Dagestan are well worth reading if one is interested in the goings-on of a particularly obscure corner of the world. (The language of the dialogues is also interesting, written in a peculiar Dagestani-accented Russian, but this inevitably gets lost in translation.)

As for the translation – while generally more florid and verbose than the Avar (put side-by-side, the Russian is noticeably longer) it is in most parts close enough to the original to make some sense of it.
But it is not without problems. Large parts remain untranslated, including many amusing anecdotes, and, notably, poems. Gamzatov justifies his choice of a Russian translator who does not know Avar, saying that only a poet can properly convey another poet’s thoughts. Yet it’s exactly the poems that often go untranslated, or the translations of other translators are quoted; in some cases, they even get “translated” into prose.
Apart from the omissions, many texts appear jarringly out of sequence, leading one to skip back and forth in the Avar original to find the matching parts. Incomplete parts are puzzlingly omitted as if torn off mid-paragraph, and “sewn together” in the Russian, yet one can still sense their absence.
And there are unexplained additions and mistranslations (some of which have been pointed out by a reader). It all gives the impression of a rushed and even indifferent job.
I talked about translating directly from the original. But it’s not possible now – I still don’t know Avar all that well, the task is enormous, and there’s simply no demand for it.

So I will leave it for now. But perhaps, in some far-off future, it could happen.
Or, if you can’t wait, you could just learn Avar yourself, to get the full flavor (and “volume”) of the original – something that no translation could give you.

It’s difficult to teach you to those who don’t know you from birth.
How many sounds you have, just counting from one to ten: цо, кIиго, лъабго, ункъо, щуго, анлъго, анкьго, микьго, ичIго, анцIго – for a non-Avar to count from one to ten in Avar is like crossing from one bank of a rushing river to the other with a large stone in one’s arms. If you can count from one to ten, it’s not difficult to count further. Now you know how to swim as well – now go and start paddling.
Forget about non-Avars – Avar elders instruct children to say, without stopping, these four words, three times in a row “Къверкъ кьурулъа гъоркье кIанцIана” (“A frog jumped down from the cliff”). We village children would all be making a noise like geese at the shores of a lake. “Къверкъ кьурулъа гъоркье кIанцIана!” “Къверкъ кьурулъа гъоркье кIанцIана!” “Къверкъ кьурулъа гъоркье кIанцIана!” Most could not do this without making a mistake.

It’s hard for me to get others to know you, my dear native language. Your wealth of sounds, so many are they, that it’s difficult for a non-Avar to learn to pronounce them, but what a great pleasure it is if you can. Take the numbers from one to ten: цо, кIиго, лъабго, ункъго, щуго, анлъго, анкьго, микьго, ичIго, анцIго. When I meet a person who can correctly count to ten in Avar, I compare it to the bravery needed to cross from one bank of a river to the other with a beam balanced on one’s shoulder. If you can do this, you can count even further. Now you know how to swim as well – go ahead and try.
Never mind non-Avars, even our Avar children are told by their elders, “Now try to say three times, without making a mistake “Кьода гъоркь къверкъ къвакъвадана“, which means “A frog croaked under the bridge”. Four short words, but we village children practiced all day to pronounce this tongue-twister quickly and without mistakes.

In 1962 I was in Poland as part of a delegation of Soviet writers. One day in Krakow I heard a knock on the door of my hotel room. I looked out, and at my doorstep stood a man asking in perfect Avar, “Is Rasul Gamzatov staying here?”.
“May your house burn down, brother! How on earth did you end up here?” I exclaimed and invited him in. We sat down and talked for a long time.

A few years ago I was in Poland as part of a delegation of Soviet writers. One day in Krakow I heard a knock on the door of my hotel room. I opened it, and the stranger there asked in perfect Avar, “Is Rasul Gamzatov staying here?”
“May your father’s house not burn down and not collapse, brother! How on earth did you end up in Krakow?” I nearly flung myself around his neck and pulled him into my room. We talked until well into the night.

It turned out he was not an Avar, but a Polish professor who had studied Avar and worked on its grammar. He had first heard it being spoken by two fellow inmates in a concentration camp. One of them later died; the other escaped and is still alive.
The Polish professor made quite an impression on me, and I invited him to Dagestan.

But my guest was not an Avar – he was a Polish professor who studied the languages and literatures of Dagestan. He had first heard Avar from two fellow inmates in a concentration camp. He took a liking to the language, but more than that, he took a liking to the Avars themselves. The Pole began studying our language. Eventually one of them died, but the other survived, was liberated by the Soviet Army and is still alive to this day. I found the whole thing quite surprising and unusual. In the end I invited him to Dagestan.

Of course, like many linguists this professor spoke slowly and carefully and according to the rules of grammar. But the language of literature, of my book, does not obey these rules. There is no one common grammar for all poets – each has his own personal grammar.

Yes, we both spoke Avar that day. But nevertheless there was an enormous difference between his speech and mine – he spoke like an academic, in a very clear and correct, but almost too correct and even indifferent Avar. He was thinking more about grammar than the beauty of the language, about tables and construction of phrases and not about the living substance of each word.

I want to write a book where grammar obeys literature and not where literature obeys grammar. If I don’t write this way, then literature will become like the man from Gotsatl who let a traveler he encountered on the road climb up behind him on his mule. The traveler then started arguing with him, claiming the mule and everything attached to it as his own.

I want to write a book not where the language obeys grammar, but rather where grammar obeys the language. Otherwise grammar becomes like a traveler walking along a road, and literature becomes like a traveler riding on a mule, where the former asks the latter to let him climb on behind him. Eventually he will become bolder and push the owner out of the saddle before chasing him away altogether, saying “this mule, and everything attached to it, is mine!”

He first called my attention to the peculiarities of the Lesghian or Avar language. He said he had not yet been able to master it on account of the interminable intricacies of its construction, and the difficulties in its pronunciation. He, however, was able to quote me the numerals, which, loaded as they are with “clicks”, excited my curiosity.

… that which most surprises is the paucity of words taken from absolutely foreign tongues, such as the Persian, the Georgian and the Tatar with which the Avars cannot fail to be brought in contact. The few Arabic words of course have found their way into the language through the Kuran.

We now come to the question, who are these Avar? By the Persians and the Russians they are called Lesghians, but they themselves repudiate this name. Their legends are few, history, properly so called, they have none. Their poems and stories only tell us of quarrels – for which, by-the-bye, they have three words – and raids on the part of the Russians and Persians.

When I come to the alphabet and grammar I shall say a few more words with regard to a certain peculiarity which at once strikes the stranger; the extraordinary “click” found in the beginning, the middle and the end of words, and resembling nothing in our continent, but reminding us of the terminal sound so exuberant in the Aztek language. Whence it came – for as far as I can gather it is not to be found amongst the neighbouring tribes – I cannot imagine. Except to those who have heard it uttered, it is impossible to explain it. It differs entirely from the many South African “clicks,” and used as it is by a race who are in possession of a highly developed language, offers itself as a phenomenon which requires careful investigation.

I visited Cuba and put my Avar burka* on Fidel Castro. It looked quite good on him. He asked me, “Why aren’t there any buttons on it?”
I answered, “to make it easier to throw off and pull out a weapon if an enemy comes.”
Fidel agreed…

In Cuba I gave Fidel Castro our traditional burka as a gift.
“Why aren’t there any buttons?” he asked, surprised.
“So that if necessary one could throw it off and pull out one’s sword.”
“Clothing fit for a guerrilla,” agreed guerrilla Fidel.

*Not to be confused with the Afghan women’s garment, the Caucasian burka (Avar буртина) is a square-shouldered sheepskin cloak.